For many consumers, skimping on a new car upgrade has created a lot of pent-up demand. While it’s unclear when buyers will be ready to buy autos en masse again, a new report from The Nielsen Co. suggests one of the best ways to reach them now is via online advertising, particularly video.
The report, released this month, found many consumers were still looking, but just not buying during the first four months of the year. However, 12 percent of the U.S. population said they will probably or definitely buy a …

With less money to spend, consumers will undoubtedly be spending more time at home in 2009.
Already this year, Nielsen witnessed significant year-over-year (ending September 2008) growth in online activities with increases in time spent daily on videos (+46%), blogs (+20%), and e-commerce sites (+17%).
Expect this trend to continue, as well as increases in newer in-home entertainment options such as video vending.
But don’t expect more time spent at home to trigger increased book sales.
Technology-driven gadgets, gizmos, and games will dominate spare-time activities, while U.S. book sales will remain essentially flat, with …

Fall TV premieres, coupled with coverage of the presidential election and the financial crisis, boosted online video viewing at all four networks’ websites in September.
NBC.com, which grew 312% month-over-month, saw the largest September increase in video viewers, followed by FOX Broadcasting and ABC.com, with 165% and 105% growth, respectively, Nielsen Online reported Thursday.

Rank
(by UV) 
TV Network
Web Property
Unique Viewers
(in 000s)
% Change:
Unique Viewers
(Aug. – Sept. 2008)

1
NBC.com
5,557
312%

2
ABC.COM
5,246
105%

3
CBS Television
3,296
38%

4
FOX Broadcasting
1,371
165%

Source: Nielsen Online, VideoCensus (August – September 2008).

Note: Data includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising.

“A combination of series and season premiers, political news and parodies, and coverage …

Josh Tanz
With the campaign season rapidly coming to an end, I’ve been thinking about how drastically my online and offline behavior has changed in the past few months. I am not alone in saying that I’ve been pretty consumed with election coverage since the heat of the primaries. Over the past year traffic to political sites and television viewership of partisan programming have jumped to historic levels. Most surprising, though, is that I’ve found my use of online video has skyrocketed from virtually none pre-election to daily …

With Nielsen Business Media’s Marketing to Men 18-34 conference convening in New York City Tuesday and Wednesday, Nielsen assembled a full round-up of TV, online, mobile, and gaming data to illuminate how these younger male consumers use media.
Television
-Men typically watch less TV than women their age — with one exception: male teens actually watch more TV than female teens.  Men ages 18 to 34 tend to watch more cable and pay channels, while women gravitate to broadcast networks.
-When it comes to sports programming on TV, men 18-34 are more attentive viewers (+12%) than women of the …

ONLINE BRAND
TOTAL STREAMS
 (in 000s)
UNIQUE VIEWERS
(in 000s)

YouTube
4,762,883
76,746

Fox Interactive Media
278,375
16,053

Nickelodeon Kids and Family Network
223,044
6,935

MSN/Windows Live
205,018
12,035

Disney Online
171,249
10,341

Yahoo!
169,259
19,659

ESPN
123,123
5,827

Hulu
107,622
2,632

CNN Digital Network
106,383
8,111

Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network
87,441
3,892

Source: Nielsen Online, VideoCensus
Note: Online brands are ranked by video streams; data includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in Ad Age.

In August, videos at JohnMcCain.com attracted more female than male viewers for the first time, Nielsen Online reported Wednesday.
Women accounted for 58% of all unique video viewers on John McCain’s website last month — up from July and June, when they made up 48% and 37% of unique video viewers on the site.
The increase in women video viewers at JohnMcCain.com came during the same month that McCain selected Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate.
Barack Obama’s website drew consistently large percentages of women video viewers during the summer months, …

Olympic athletes broke 132 Olympics records and set 43 new world records during the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.
Meanwhile, Olympics fans who logged on to the Internet to follow the events around the clock set a new online precedent during the Games,  Nielsen Online reported Wednesday.
Olympics Web Portals
In the U.S., NBC, an official broadcast partner for the event, drew an average of 18 million (week one) to 18.9 million unique visitors (week two) to its Olympics website during the Games.
Yahoo’s Olympics section drove more traffic than NBC’s site, but visitors to NBCOlympics.com …

New Zealanders are now more likely to surf the Web via broadband — rather than dial-up service, according to a new report released Tuesday by Nielsen.
The report found that in 2007, 54% of New Zealanders accessed the Internet via broadband — a significant increase that matches improvements in the country’s broadband coverage during the same time period.
Online social networking has also experienced growth in New Zealand, according to Nielsen.  As of the end of 2007, nearly half of all New Zealanders had visited Bebo, the country’s most popular social networking site.  …

With digital coverage of the Beijing Olympics more ambitious than ever before and industry analysts issuing dire predictions of the death of TV, The Christian Science Monitor had to pop the question: “Is this the summer that the Internet finally kills television as we once knew it?”
Short answer: the jury is still out.  Monitor staff writer Gregory Lamb, who queried a range of experts on the topic, outlines the arguments on both sides, but steers clear of drawing any conclusions.
The story briefly addresses the prospects for video viewing via mobile …